Pisces 23° (March 13)

 

As I was writing, two Blagues ago, I got the feeling it had to be a two parter. And the last sentence I said on the subject was: Where I really channeled my love of figurines, shall we say, was in drawing; and specifically in my rendering of the Flintstones.

Since playing with actual dolls caused so much shame and guilt and shame you see, compounded by general statements made by my father aloud about me even as I’m, hello right there—comments like “he’s really round-shouldered isn’t he”. This particular one stands out because I remember feeling its effects almost physical. Certainly felt it emotionally. In recent years I’ve linked posture issues and even shoulder problems with manifesting this malignancy heaped upon me by manipulating my own body, subconsciously, never feeling in my skin, but that I had to compensate through, yeah some kind of Marcel Marceau manipulation of myself to “appear” differently than I am. Appearing is a very Libran word, and I’m a classic conceptual sort of kook.

Anyway I digress…

Plopped in front of the electronic baby sitter I saw the same TV shows day in and day out from the moment I arrived home from school through to, and ultimately mostly through, dinner, into primetime, every night from the time I’ve been alive until, I’m gonna say, the upper reaches of high-school where I did manage to bust out a social life. I was fun! But back into those tender years, and I mean really tender, like four years old: I started to draw the Flintsones characters and ultimately took things, if not completely three dimensional, then two-plus, by then cutting all the characters out, which I would draw next to each other, to get the sizing right, and I would thicken a bit the outside lines, for ease—a clever trick that came too late—and then cut them all out. And then draw their backs, which was one of the funner parts because it required thinking. I made houses and chairs, with tabs, that I could fold down and fasten with tape so they’d stand up, onto scenic surfaces better known as paper plates or interestingly shaped cartons, that provided a field which provided me literal platforms for creative expression.

My Flintstones were really good, too. They were kind of perfect. And I became a connoisseur of the evolving styles, from the oldest episodes to the newer ones, during the show’s run, in the articulation of the characters and I tended to go for the most recent looks, though I suspect, now, I might have patterned my little figures on the older ones. But if I were to draw you a Flintstone today it would recall the latter years of the original primetime run of the series. Anway, they were my first dolls of my own. I also made a sort of cartoon Lost and Space series, another afterschool series that ran for eons in syndication. But my dollish lust was ultimately more satisfied by Major Matt Mason. Oh my god I loved Major Matt Mason. He was an astraunaut and his rides and props were amazing. I had both the red space rover and the clear blue bubble on wheels that it could two, the bubble itself being what rolled, wherein a seat for Matt, as the result of amazing technology (lol) would stay upright within the rolling bubble. The door the the bubble was a panel that slid up so that Matt could slide in. Major Matt Mason was rubber with wires inside which would lose their pluck, resulting in flopping limbs.

Later I collected mostly all of the Johnny West series which I gave someone to sell……how strange, this never happens, but I hear a call up to my lair from a voice not Stellas and up the stairs comes our friend and associate Brad. Hi Brad….twenty two hours pass, and I’m back, wondering did I finish this Blague or is there more to say…on Ebay, which they did. It fetched something, but not a lot. I could have waited. But I had carted the collection around from house to house over the decades and it was time to let go. When the letting go of things you think will hurt you doesn’t so much, it makes it easier to let other things go. Anyway, once I finished playing with dolls, I took up playing with personages. Illustrated, first, with my obsession with pantheons and mythology because, really, I took to drawing the various gods and goddesses whom I loved. Then the Justine League or theater groups or “schools” of artists, or movements, to some degree, royal families, or literary families or any kind of extended family.And I’m really into pantheons in my own life, too, whether it was feeling part of a movement myself or in the “characters” that I write about (even the astrological ones) or the “family of performers” I present and avec whom I commune.

 

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*
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